AMD has announced the launch of the world's first 40nm GPUs. The new products are for uses in notebook computers and are the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4860 and HD 4830. The GPUs support DirectX 10.1 and theater-quality HD multimedia.

The HD 4860 will first be seen in the Asus K notebook that is coming soon. AMD says that the smaller 40nm process allows it to deliver more graphics power in a smaller die size making discrete GPUs available for smaller computers than could previously be supported.

The HD 4860 supports GDDR5 RAM and the HD 4830 supports GDDR3. Hardware decoding for 1080p video takes the work off the CPU and puts it onto the GPU where things can be decoded more efficiently. AMD says that notebooks using the new GPUs will be available in Q2 2009.

Via AMD